Pine Burr blocks

The cold weather is keeping me from spending much time up in the sewing room.  Thus no machine sewing.  Instead I sit in the warmth and do piecing.  For no real reason I've made another Pine Burr block. 

A couple of years ago, my friend Mrs. Nakazawa, gave me a couple bags of hand marked triangles that she had made for something.  She thought I'd be able to make use of them but actually, as a machine piecer I didn't think I'd have the patience to sew with them.  Hand marked, scissor cut.  They would be too hard to work into a machine pieced quilt.  I debated tossing the bags out... but instead stuffed them in my closet.

Yeah!  The little triangles aren't the exact size I need for the Pine Burr block but with some minor marking and cutting they work just fine and there is a lovely assortment of fabrics!  One of the few bags of stuff STUFFED in my closet that I've actually found a use for!

Thus another Pine Burr block has been made and I'm working on a third.

Dear me...  This looks like it is trying to grow into a quilt.

Education is...

Grumble... grumble... steam... steam...

I have been teaching English to my little 6th grade N-chan for.... nearly 6 years!  She has always been a cheery, motivated, show-offy sort of student.  When she was in a class she would get upset if I didn't call on her and her ability has always been far above students even older than she.  When everyone else graduated to jr. high last year, she wanted to stay on and so she's been having a private lesson each week.  I have tried to treat her as an adult... for example serving tea while we study English, using the dining room table rather than the room where I teach children.  We've played games and cooked and sewn together.  All in all I think we have had an enjoyable 6 years.

But last night N-chan turned ornery and lazy, propping her head on her elbow...  giving me grunts to questions.  After the third "Whatever" I lost my temper and slammed books shut and asked her to explain her attitude problem or go home.  We faced off in a silent stare for a minute or two and N-chan grudgingly mumbled that she was tired.

Let's say... I'm not surprised.  Not that she's tired, that she has an attitude problem.  Hey, she's going into her teens soon.  This is what pre-teenagers do!  I don't think I have EVER had a pre-teen student (including my own children) that hasn't had me wishing I'd chosen a different profession!  I've sent students home, I've stormed out myself until an apology was given, I've called parents and asked them to reconsider the student's English motivation, I've lectured and scolded and explained my position (... and I mangle the Japanese language so when I'm upset.  I wonder if anyone even understands what I'm sputtering about.)

Whether N-chan and I repaired our relationship after 15 minutes of mumbling (her) and sputtering (me), I won't know until next week I guess.  She SAID she wants to continue until March (when she graduates) but other students have never come back after one of these confrontations.  It makes me sad because I have put a lot of time and effort and LOVE into making English enjoyable and encouraging each student to develop as they can.  After one of these episodes I fear the student will hate me (who cares about that!) and for the rest of their lives will have negative connotations about English.... because I lost my temper once.

"Education is..." Well, I've lost my temper and my confidence both.  You know... most of these students never say boo to me again even after 6 years of coming weekly to my house.  Now WHY did I want to be an English teacher?

Red tape

A quiet weekend.  Today I went for crosswalk duty and found the road in front of the school all cleared away from ice and snow.  This is thanks to the sweet shop owner's son.  Let me tell you... I guess we have red tape woes all over the world. 

At the beginning of December I personally reported to the City Safety Bureau that the street in front of the school needed a supply of sand for when snowy days come upon us.  I was told I was jumping the gun and the city would deliver sand by the new year.  (And I was assured it wouldn't snow before January...  How do THEY know?)

But January came and though sand was delivered to other corners of the neighborhood, no sand bags in front of the school.  The principal and I commiserated.  He said he would call and ask for a delivery.

And then it snowed.  And then the snow melted.  And then it froze.  And for two days last week we had children slipping and falling on the sidewalk.  But that is actually a small problem.  The kids seem to LIKE the slipping and tumbling.  They purposely walk on the icy patches no matter my warnings.  It's the ROAD that is the problem!!!  The one road on the corner is clear of snow (a snow truck came by and cleared the road).  The other road at the corner is icebound and unsuspecting cars skid at the stop sign.  THAT'S the road that needs the sand!

The principal reported back that the city told him that one road is a prefecture road, the other is a city road, and the only roads that are included in budgeting are the prefecture roads.  Thus the other road gets ignored.  The sweet shop owner came out and joined the conversation.  It seems they have asked the city to uplug their gutter too but they got the same run around. 

So between the principal going out and buying sand himself and the sweetshop owner's son spending hours clearing the road of ice... the road is now safe.

Tonight it is supposed to snow again...

The sweet shop owner's grandson and me... before the snow.  Yep.  That's the get-up I wear daily!  The baby only dresses up as a monkey on alternate days.

Winter decoration

I haven't been paying much attention the the photography website I visit that gives out weekend homework.  I'll never get better at photography if I don't take up their challenges!

This weekend's assignment was to take a picture showing contrast.  Hmm... now as a quilter I should know about contrast but what was that again?  Something about light and dark images.

On Thursday Mrs. Furui gave me a pretty winter decoration she had made out of paper.  Regular old light-weight colored paper!  Mrs. Furui will do things like this.  She sees something that strikes her, be it a patchwork  bag or a quilting motif or a knitting pattern... or in this case a paper ornament, and she'll sketch it on scratch paper.  Mrs. Furui does not carry a camera around with her like I do.  She is one of the purists who doesn't even own a cellphone so no camera there either.  Just sketches on the backs of receipts from her wallet or a paper bag...  Anyway....

Mrs. Furui found the pretty paper ornament and spent some minutes sketching it and then went home and played around with colored paper for awhile, cutting here.. bending there.  It is not origami.  As she tells it, the decoration is a simple piece made of 8 sections that are glued together and then hung.  The color on one side and the white on the other make the intricate design.

So this is my attempt at the photography contrast assignment.  I photographed it hanging in the window late at night so that the outdoors scenery wouldn't get in the picture (a quilt reflection did.)

Camera: Olympus E-PL2
Exposure: 0.04s (1/25)
Aperture: f/1.7
Focal Length: 20 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Program: Creative Program (dramatic)

Mrs. Furui had made quite a few of these decorations for her own home and to give to her friends and family.  This is another reason her quilts take quite awhile to get finished.  I don't mind if she doesn't mind!

Patchwork lessons

Yesterday, my friends Mrs. Nakazawa and Rumi-san came for their patchwork lesson.  They  have big ideas and lots of dreams about making things but not that much time.  We've been working on a Bible Sampler for months now and they are finally getting to the lattice stage.  (But Mrs. Nakazawa is making TWO Bible Samplers so it is taking longer than she expected...)  Yesterday, both ladies spent the time sewing borders and lattice for their Bible quilts. 

But Mrs. Nakazawa and Rumi-san are also the friends who bought the sewing machines last year.  I am horrified that neither friend seems to have used their sewing machines enough to remember how to wind the bobbins or thread the machines!!!  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?   This means that both ladies are content to bring their machines to my house once a month and use the machines here (under my instruction) and then they take their machines home and never open them up again.  And it also means that they don't get their homework done.  It means, THEY LIKE SEWING AT MY HOUSE BUT NOT IN THEIR OWN HOMES!!!

Now those machines were very expensive and it was under my recommendation that my friends bought them.  They both seemed to want to make so many quilts but all the hand piecing was such slow going.  And both were so gung-ho about owning their own sewing machine!  But look!  They actually don't use their sewing machines very much.  If they're only going to sew at my house then they could have used my two cheapy, old machines...  Sigh.

That is not to say that things are not getting done.  Mrs. Nakazawa and Rumi-san are making the same Loves Me quilt and they both finished the chain stitch embroidery in the border.  Aren't these flimsies pretty?!  Mrs. Nakazawa made the black one... Rumi-san made the brown one.

Well, I guess my friends did do all the free hand applique on their sewing machines so they are making some progress...The next step is going to be sandwiching the quilts but I suggested that my friends work a bit more on their Bible quilts this month...  That's the trouble with doing two or three things at the same time... None of the projects get completed!
 

Machine quilting... Hand quilting...

Thursday patchwork day was great fun.  We met for the first time this year and lots of winter holiday tales to tell.

 As promised, Mrs. Ochiai photographed my Fiery Starr quilt for me, with ME in the picture. 

And the ladies raved and complimented me on my machine quilting.

But you know... 

Mrs. Furui pulled out a simple quilt she has been making for the past four years (all pieced by hand).  Such a simple pattern... Nine Patch.  But as usual, Mrs. Furui is going to do fantastic things with her hand quilting!  It makes me sigh...

"Yes!  Hand-quilting is really the ultimate art form!"

And hand-quilting really makes the quilt!  I would have put in a motif in the open white squares and maybe some vines in the rectangles but Mrs. Furui has a very intricate pattern going.  Such beauty.  The only drawback that I can see is that this will probably take her another 4 years to complete...

Fiery Starr Finish

I have finished the Fiery Starr quilt!!

Hip Hip Hooray!  Well, that was a time consuming quilt!

Okay.... Now I'm very happy with the overall quilt and how it turned out.  Sort of proud of myself, sort of smug.  But there are a lot of bloopers in it too.  It would never will a prize in a quilt show... not that I've ever thought about showing my quilts.  For my niece, for whom this was made, it will be a nice, showy quilt and she will never notice the "mistakes".  I don't have a great place to spread this quilt out and photograph it but I'm taking it to my patchwork group today and maybe Mrs. Ochiai will photograph it for me.  In the meantime, here is a critique for my own reference.  (No sense in making the same mistakes twice.)

The pattern for this was called Starr Fire... and there was a wedge template with markings on it included in the pattern.  Unfortunately my seam allowances were off just a bit so from the beginning my blocks didn't completely match up.  You'll have to think of a way to check those seam allowances if you want to make this quilt again, Tanya.

And the original pattern didn't have the extra two borders but it seemed a waste to not use the extra fabric that was left over so I added the thin rainbow strip around the quilt.  Quite a nice touch I think.

While I was in the States at the Long Beach Quilt Festival, I bought a cone of Superior thread (and a thread holder) at one of the booths.  Come to think of it, I may have bought the quilt pattern there too.  I was interested in seeing how the Superior thread worked...  But you know, even with the thread holder, the thread seemed to unravel into three strands as I sewed and then they'd get tangled up in the needle.  I'm not sure what I was doing wrong.  The needle was too thick?  The sewing machine didn't accommodate the thread well?  If I were doing this again I'd try different thread.

It took me a long time to find a rhythm for making the feathers in the wedges.   Some of them are jerky... the balance is very haphazard.  Some have 9 loops, some have 11...  I wish I could have been more consistent when quilting those but probably no one is going to compare 192 wedges of quilting.

And then the flowers...  They look great from the top!  BUT...  Some of those (not all...  maybe a quarter of the flowers) have birds' nests on the back!  I even took out two and redid them.  Now why did this happen?  The tension somewhere was too loose, but most of that was continuous stitching so though the wedge quilting looks smooth on the back, the transition to the flower quilting messed up something.

Okay.  A quick look so you know what I'm talking about and then no one is ever supposed to look at the back of this quilt again!  If I were a perfectionist I could take out the matted flowers, it isn't that much work to take them out (not with all those loose threads) and it isn't that much work to quilt them again...  But I swear... from the top, the flowers look just fine.

Moving out to the border...   A simple swirl and petal design that wasn't too difficult and hopefully tied in to the flowers.

The final feather border improved with the extra quilting but... though I marked the quilting area... for example a line a quarter inch from the quilt edge... when using the machine I was maybe a bit too flamboyant and worked in too close...  The result is the loss of a few feather tips in the binding.  I should have made my feathers a bit smaller?  And if you look closely at that picture you'll see I "quilted in" a fold or two of the border fabric.  Again, though I basted the edges to prevent the quilt from shifting, the top did warp a bit as I swooped around to sew my feathers.  A quilter's eye would say this is a big no-no.  My niece is not going to notice.

So.  A finished quilt!  I started piecing in August last year and started quilting in October.  Still, it took a lot longer than I thought it was going to.  This will be hand carried by me to the States sometime this summer and given to my niece as a high school graduation present.

I sure hope she doesn't plan to get married for a few years because I don't think I have the energy to make her another quilt any time soon.